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Updated: Aug 20, 2026

Selective Harvesting of Marginating-hepatic Leukocytes
Published on: July 21, 2016
The non-classical HLA class I molecule HFE does not influence the NK-like activity contained in fresh human PBMCs and
Steve Pascolo1, Florent Ginhoux, Nihay Laham
1Department of Immunology, Auf der Morgenstelle 15, 72076 Tübingen, Germany. steve.pascolo@uni-tuebingen.de
Abstract:
In humans, four beta2-microglobulin-associated non-classical class I molecules are encoded in the MHC: HLA-E, -F, -G and -H. Three of them (HLA-E, -F and -G) were shown to inhibit NK activity. On the contrary, the fourth one, HLA-H, named HFE after it was found to be mutated in patients suffering from inherited hemochromatosis, has been shown to be involved only in the regulation of iron uptake. We tested the capacity of HFE to affect (enhance or reduce) specifically the NK activity contained in non-manipulated fresh human PBMCs. We showed that HFE expression by target cells does not affect their killing by the NK-like activity contained in PBMCs. Moreover, using fluorescent HFE tetramers, we could confirm that blood NK cells as well as blood gammadelta T cells do not bind HFE. Altogether, our data indicate that HFE does not affect the NK activity contained in the PBMCs.
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